The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.

Writing is a noble privilege compared with the lot of most people, who live like parts of a machine, who live only to keep the gears of society pointlessly turning.

A mud-stained sunlight began to splatter the sodden fields, and the hateful, nasal world of birds began to come to life. It seemed to me that I was coming out of a suffocating nightmare and that the low clouds flying before the wind were the shreds of an evil dream.

Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery.

My poor life This shawl Frayed on strongboxes full of gold I roll along with Dream And smoke And the only flame in the universe

One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. Its intensity stays the same; and, d'you know, it's most mysterious, the corners in which the joy of living can sometimes hide away.

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle.